GaN is trending up, as evidenced by the Ernst & Young regional startup of the year award recently won by Exagan. The remarkable advances made by the company in the three years since it was founded and strong market potential are what earned Exagan the award.

Exagan, founded in 2014, has set the ambitious target of becoming the leader on the $14 billion global power electronics market. The company develops, manufactures, and sells gallium-nitride-on-silicon components using innovative materials (including a patented buffer layer placed between the silicon substrate and GaN layer, reducing constraints) developed over ten years of research at Soitec and Leti and the company's in-house power component expertise.

GaN offers several advantages over traditional silicon power components: reduced electrical losses, higher switching frequencies, smaller form factors, and lower costs. Power electronic components serve as switches in the power converters found in all of the electronic devices we use every day.